During participation in athletic activities, whether at scholastic, amateur or professional levels, injuries occur. These injuries are often temporarily disabling and even if the injury does not impact the activities of daily living, they often inhibit participation and performance in athletic activities.
The injuries are often not severe enough to prevent the athlete from attempting to participate. Participants continue to participate, often times causing further injury.
In particular, when playing ball sports such as baseball, volleyball, football and basketball, participants sustain injuries to their fingers. When these digits are bandaged to prevent further injury and to promote proper healing, the bandaging inhibits performance in these sports because the participant cannot properly grip the ball or perform other actions. Traditional guards that rigidly maintain a digit in a straight linear manner, generally covering a fingertip particularly interfere with ball playing. Often if the participant uses such a device, it causes injury to other participants if there is contact. Less protective devices leave the digit open to re-injury during ball play.
Most guards known in the prior art are meant for fully immobilizing the finger for healing, and not for promoting athletic performance, and thus rigidly maintain the injured finger in a straight, linear position. These well-known devices cover a fingertip and inferior surface of the injured finger, thereby inhibiting the wearer from gripping equipment such as a ball during participation in athletic activities, such as baseball, volleyball, basketball and football, thereby negatively affecting performance. Additionally, the more protective the straight linear guard is, the more likely it is to cause injury to another participant during athletic activities. Other guards known in the prior art fail to provide the protection needed for participation in athletic activities.
While these units may be suitable for the particular purpose employed, or for general use, they would not be as suitable for the purposes of the present disclosure as disclosed hereafter.
In the present disclosure, where a document, act or item of knowledge is referred to or discussed, this reference or discussion is not an admission that the document, act or item of knowledge or any combination thereof was at the priority date, publicly available, known to the public, part of common general knowledge or otherwise constitutes prior art under the applicable statutory provisions; or is known to be relevant to an attempt to solve any problem with which the present disclosure is concerned.
While certain aspects of conventional technologies have been discussed to facilitate the present disclosure, no technical aspects are disclaimed and it is contemplated that the claims may encompass one or more of the conventional technical aspects discussed herein.